


All Fall Down

by Zoya1416



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Beta Colony, Disabiities, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Therapy, shuttle crash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-08
Updated: 2015-02-08
Packaged: 2018-03-11 04:59:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3314999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoya1416/pseuds/Zoya1416
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cordelia recommends Betan therapy for everyone, yet the only time we know she experienced it, she pushed Dr. Mehta into an aquarium. What made her such an advocate, then?</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Fall Down

When her father's shuttle went down seconds after it had taken off, she didn't stop seeing silver-purple colors for weeks. Silvery threads tumbled down to purple cloud-like puffs which then streaked upward like Roman candles, sending silver threads showering down again. The only two colors in the universe, over and over again. The therapy had started almost before the shuttle fragments had hit Beta. The colony's spaceports had experienced enough tragedies in the past that they had someone, several groups of someones, on stand-by call. Family members of the crew of the shuttle, and of the passengers it had carried, were culled out of the shocked crowd of unbelieving observers. Those personally involved had been quickly identified by the capacious Beta data banks, combined with the all-observing camera eyes.

Cordelia's family was pulled into an small office. Blinded, she could smell old, bitter coffee, the warm plastic odors of computers and their inevitable gear, a touch of mustard—the therapist may have been having lunch when she went out on the emergency call. The chair was fabric-textured plastic with its own slight smells, pale reminders of some odiferous clients, possibly? Probably. And fabric textures were harder to clean. Someone had been using an industrial smelling cleaner, but that had been in the corridor outside, not in here. What kind of cleaner should advertise itself that much? Not the same as in a five-space ship where every tiny odor was noticeable...

...where her father should be right now, plotting an astrogational survey. Not dead in such a stupid way. They always knew he could die in the survey, and that they might never knew the way of his passing. That was understood. Acceptance was reinforced in annual light tune-ups by the healers who monitored 5-space jump ship families.

“It was so bright! Mother, it was so bright!” Her brother's voice had been high and pleased. When their mother hadn't responded, he'd turned to his equally silent sister. “Cordy, it was so bright! It was pretty!”

She couldn't answer him, couldn't unstick her mouth enough to make words. Tears were impossible yet. 

The station therapist intervened gently. “Dr. Naismith, may I speak to your son?”

Her mother shook her head. “Not without a specialist. Lanyon's differently abled.” 

Cordelia's mother added, “his comprehension is delayed—he's almost thirty, and you can see he doesn't understand, doesn't understand,” ...and her eyes did fill with tears, but she continued, “but in some ways he is superiorly abled. His mathematics skills are greater than my husband's and he's a five space pilot...” and then she realized, again, and again tears flowed over.

Cordelia couldn't talk to that therapist, either, because her eyes wouldn't show her anything except the purple and silver lines. But the next woman in line for the family understood traumatic dissociation better, and didn't require Cordelia to say anything. She had a kind, calm voice, much more pleasant than Cordelia's mother's...her mother's gentle voice had been reserved for her differently abled child. 

“Here.” Cool but firm fingers moved her hands onto a resilient ball. “You can feel this, here. It's special modeling clay, see? You can mold it, throw it, pound it...make shapes...whatever you need.” The voice was warm, comforting, and so unlike her mother's that she was furious.

“Do I get a grade on it?”

It was the first thing she'd said in twenty-four hours. Her throat was dry and aching. She heard the tiny noise of the woman's breathing, as it paused for a second. This office was larger. She could feel that by the rebound from their voices. They were sitting at a worn-out table, with small cracks around the edges. She picked at the edge of the table top herself. Oh. That was why the table was ragged. Too many clients had passed this way, taking out frustrations on defenseless plastic. 

“The only grade is passing, whether you use the clay or not. If you don't like it, we can find something else.”

“I ask because I'm supposed to be studying 5-space mathematics, not whapping around something like a two year old.”

“And you will be again, if that's what you want.”

She was suddenly angry. “Why shouldn't I want it? He didn't get killed in a survey, he got killed in a stupid shuttle accident. Nobody should die like that. Why did it crash?” Cordelia rocked the chair up and down. Maybe she'd fall over. That might help, give her some physical pain to attend to.

There was another hesitation of breath. “Investigations are ongoing.”

“Of course.” She was bitter now. This was a spaceport appointed therapist, after all, and surely owed some loyalties to her employers. “They are always ongoing. Tell me something!” She felt tightness at her eyes, but still refused to let tears fall.  
The calm voice repeated what must be the party line.

“We simply have no idea. The shuttles are public conveyances. It may have been deliberate—a bombing.” Cordelia shuddered at the idea of such anti-social behavior.

“All kinds of non-Betans, as well as Betans, use them, you know that—we can't monitor everyone all for homicidal impulses, even for suicidal ones. Could have been an accident, although it had been serviced and inspected only two months earlier. Micro-weld breaks sometimes aren't caught in one inspection but will get just large enough before the next one. It's not even clear yet where in the shuttle the explosion started. All the pieces will be collected, and the trajectories mapped, and then we will know more. At least the transportation and safety board will know. Final reports might not come in for a year—you can bet this one will be studied down to the last pin-screw. Do you know how many viewers there were! Dozens! Plus all the families who didn't go down to view the launch!”

Cordelia could hear a ragged catch in the voice, which had just failed to be neutrally reflective. This woman might not have slept since the crash, might have been talking to suddenly grieving and traumatized families for a whole day. Maybe she did understand.

“It was so stupid, you know,” Cordelia said, her voice wavering. “The shuttle went up like a bullet, like it always does, and my brother was waving, which was silly, because our father couldn't see us. Then there was this smear of light across the sky, like a second sun, and then a rain of fire. I haven't been able to see anything but these purple and silver streaks since.”

Her hands took hold of the clay, made it into a ball, then smashed it down onto the table top. She could hear the soft slap. She made another ball, then another, squashing them, and then she did throw them. Was she going to hit the therapist? Good. 

Then the sobs came, great ones. Her chest heaved, and the sounds she made were more like an animal being strangled than normal tears. She bent towards the table, banging her head, glad for the pain, so she could feel something. There was a change in air pressure as the woman moved to sit next to her. She smelled a comforting odor—vanilla, cinnamon. Maybe this person had been eating a pastry. A hand was placed on her back, lightly, not exactly a caress, more like a reminder that she wasn't alone in the world.

Why she turned to her therapist and put her head against the warm shoulder, she could never say afterward. She was twenty-four, had finished university, was well into her jump-ship training. It simply shouldn't have been possible for her to bawl like an infant. But she did.

It probably wasn't according to the code of therapy detachment for the woman to slip an arm gently around her, either. It was a very small touch, but something human like that hadn't been available in her world except from her father. Not her mother. And now her father was dead.

“She's a doctor, and she's spent so much time with Lanyon, taking him to speech communication specialist after specialist. I think it will make a difference in the end, you can see he's getting better, and I can't resent him for that, but she's always with him. I was the good child, the perfect, quiet child. I was always good in school, made the best grades, but—it was never enough to make her pay attention to me. Never! Nothing was ever enough.”

She pulled away, still breathing hard, rubbing her eyes. Her head ached, and not just the forehead she'd pounded a few minutes earlier. Her stomach ached. Her whole body was stiff, bent over, muscles tense. 

“I shouldn't have said all that. I do love him. He's my only sibling. But he's older than me, and isn't anything like a big brother. More like a baby. Mother has hope, and she's probably right. She's always right!”

“You've never worked on these issues before.” It was not an accusation, but she heard it that way. On Beta, famous for its connectional work, for healing or attempting to heal everyone, she hadn't told anyone about the way she felt. It was anti-social behavior, and she felt guilty for it, for letting someone know her failure.

“I didn't need to work on them. I had him! And now he's not here. He'll never be here again. Why am I going on like this? It's stupid, just stupid. I should just accept it and go on.”

“You know it intellectually, with your mind. But not with your gut. That's why your stomach is so sore. You would benefit from work, and I'll be glad to help you. Or you are free to choose someone else.” The therapist moved quietly away, only a short distance. Cordelia heard the fabric of her sarong whisper. It sounded silky, expensive, and somehow that was comforting, too, compared to the utilitarian cotton pants and tunic her mother wore. “I can see you again the day after tomorrow, if you can come back then.”

That was the end of her first session. She did go back, and kept going two or three times a week until she could see normally and the tears had stopped. Her mother and brother had been in their own therapy, and at the end they had sessions together. Her relationship with her mother would never be close, but each was more accepting of the other. That was all you could ask, anyway, she thought. Just take the thorns off so that they could meet as adults. She forgave her mother for her inattention as much as was possible.

When she left again to resume her studies, she gave the therapist a real hug, still noticing the mild vanilla-cinnamon scent. She finally mentioned it, and the other woman laughed.

“I bake. A lot. When I get home, I can whap around dough and smoosh it around as much as I want to. Then I bring all it to the office, and let everyone else eat it. They always groan when I bring a new batch of rolls in, but they finish it off. If you ever come back—and I hope you'll keep in touch, anyway—remind me and I'll bake something for you.”

Cordelia laughed. “We can't have as much as a kilo of extra weight on board ship—but I might bring on a few, anyway.”

“Good luck, then. Stay in touch.” 

That was the end of it, until six years later when her lover betrayed her, saying he would have children with her if she'd stand aside and let him take the captaincy. This time it was easier to make the call.

“Dr. Reynolds? This is Cordelia Naismith. I—I need to talk to you. He—this man just moved out. He lied to me.”

“Certainly, Cordelia. I have an appointment the day after tomorrow. Unless you need something sooner.”

She hesitated only a moment. “I—could I? Do you?”

“I'll see you at 1900 tonight.”

“Do you—still bake?”

There was a laugh. “No, but I blend my own coffees now. Come in and try some.”

Fin


End file.
